Catching up with the Sport and Specialty crew

For 9 years now I’ve managed the website for Sport and Specialty and one of my favorite parts of the job is that I spend time with the guys catching up on their work, their goings-on, and drooling over the cars under their care. This year was no different, but the variety of cars has definitely picked up and man, are they busy.

Opening the door you’re welcomed by a freshly stripped Porsche 911 and a nearly finished Austin Healey 3000. On the other side, Cameron is working on the floor pan of the newly acquired BMW 2002 race car, next to an Alfa GTV and Alfa Spider Veloce. Ken and John are on the computers off to the side talking about a parts order, and then in the middle of the shop is a beautiful Volvo P1800 facing a mammoth 1950 Mercury – more on the Merc later.

Further in, Bill is prepping for some work in the paint booth and George has a table full of Weber parts he’s cleaning for a rebuild beside the rest of the Alfa engine. In the next room Ryan is fabricating a new fender for an Alfa Giulia as Max is wresting a new suspension onto another spotless Alfa GTV. Oh, that suspension is sexy.

You also see a lot of smiles, whether it’s kidding around with each other or just generally having a good time. But make no mistake, there are some moments of frustration and choice words being thrown about at these stubborn old beasts they work on. These guys are mechanics, working on 50-year-old classics, not technicians plugging a laptop into the onboard computer.

When I’m not shooting pictures I’m usually sitting with John updating the list of new projects for the site, progress of the cars in the shop, and then documenting those that went home. Years ago we built pages on the site for what was “In the Shop” and “On the Road” but the fact of the matter is there are just too many cars for those pages. We’re now rolling out a feature that tracks the progress of each car on its page, telling its own story. You can filter the car pages by their marque and we’ll add some more categories there soon, too.

Back to the Merc. I couldn’t stop staring at it, walking around it and making way too many pictures. I asked the guys how a ‘50 Mercury ends up in a shop surrounded by Healeys, Alfas, Porsches, Jaguars, and BMWs. “It’s part of his collection. We’ve worked on his Kellison and his Jaguar, he likes what we do.”

What’s next? More cars, more pictures, more fun. Make sure to attend the now-annual open house in the summer where you can see the shop, meet the crew, and drool over a few of the cars, too.

Meanwhile, enjoy some more of the images below from my day at the shop, and don’t forget about next year’s Open House.

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